Citizenship and Immigration Committee on May 23rd, 2013

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question and any remaining time I have I will share with my colleague, Roxanne James.

In order for Canada to remain competitive in this global economy, we need to track both capital resources and human resources. We attract capital resources by having a stable economy, a stable political system, and a low-tax regime. To attract human resources, we need to have qualified immigrants, and so on. How does Canada compare with countries like the United States and Australia, which I believe are our major competitors, in terms of service fees for visas, applications, and processing times? Perhaps you can share with us our competitiveness on a global scale.

[Karine Paré]

Since we are here to discuss division 10, on citizenship, I have the comparison for citizenship, if it's of interest for you.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

That's fine.

[Karine Paré]

For Australia, the fee is around $275. In New Zealand, it's $385, approximately. The fee in the United Kingdom is around $1,500. In the United States, it's approximately $675. Those are all in Canadian dollars.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

The United States is actually the highest.

[Karine Paré]

No, the United Kingdom is $1,500.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

What about the average processing time? Do you have any numbers?

[Alexandra Hiles]

On average, our competitor countries take about two to six months in terms of their processing times for citizenship. I don't have the breakdown per country.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

That's fine.

I'll share the rest of my time with Roxanne James.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I just want to go back to the citizenship processing fees. You've said that the last time we made changes to that fee schedule was back in 1995.

We've heard the question from my colleague across the way about the number of applications that have been processed. I apologize if I missed it, but I didn't hear him ask this: what was the actual cost of processing applications back in 1995? Do you have that?

I'm just trying to get it in relation to what we charge to process compared to the actual costs and the fact that we haven't done anything on this in almost 18 years. I would imagine that the costs have gone up. I'm just wondering if you have that type of statistical information on hand.

[Karine Paré]

Unfortunately, I don't have that information with me. I can tell you, based on the trends, that the cost went up, but I don't have that information for 1995.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Okay, thank you.

Do we have any idea of what the actual costs are for processing temporary resident visas? An average cost, an actual cost, and whether there has been a trend that it has gone upwards? I wonder if you could speak to that for just a moment.

[Karine Paré]

Because we were supposed to talk about division 10 today, and not division 9, I don't have that information with me.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Okay. Is it possible that you could provide it to the committee as soon as possible?

[A voice]

Yes.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Yes. You have a couple of minutes.

I'm not sure whether your last question is relevant. We're pretty easy this morning.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I just want to touch base on the tax hike Mr. Lamoureux referenced. I wanted to clarify something. A user fee to have someone pay for something they're receiving is not a tax hike. In fact, our government has reduced taxes over 150 times for Canadians across the board. I just wanted to clarify that.

Perhaps at this point I could talk a little more about the user fees. Is there any indication that fees should be going up, or will be going up, or that there's a need for fees to go up? I know that we've talked about the variance in the actual cost and what individuals are actually paying.

I know that you can't answer the question as to whether you think it's fair, but I'm just wondering whether you have any indication that this is something we need to look at. I think it's something we need to look at.

[Karine Paré]

In order to answer your question, maybe I can explain to you the process we do when we review our fees. There are many factors we look at when we review fees.

There's the country comparison, as I mentioned before. Usually we compare with the Five Country Conference countries, which are the countries I mentioned earlier—the U.K. the United States, New Zealand, and Australia—in terms of looking at fees they're charging and the fees that we have here in Canada for similar services.

Also, we look at the cost of processing the application. The changes that we're proposing in division 10 in terms of amending the act are that we're seeking a User Fees Act exemption to allow us to have more flexibility and to be able to shift the burden from the taxpayer to the actual user of the service.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

The actual fees are published somewhere, obviously, so people can see what those fees are. Are the actual costs associated with what you're receiving published anywhere? I'm just wondering if the average Canadian taxpayer can actually look this up anywhere and find this information. Or is this something that someone who might be watching today would be taken aback by and would say, “Oh my gosh, I didn't know that”?

[Karine Paré]

All the departments are required to report in their departmental performance report on a yearly basis. There is a schedule, a table, on the user fees, where we need to outline the total costs by business line and the total revenues that we're generating. This information is public. It's not a unit cost that we're presenting, however, but a total cost and a total revenue figure.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I thank you for bringing to light the actual costs on an average basis, because I wouldn't have known that, and I'm sure the average Canadian wouldn't have known that either. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

That concludes the first round.

I will say to members of the committee that if you have any amendments, I will be signing a letter later this morning that's for the chairman of the finance committee, and enclosing any amendments. We have agreed that we will not debate any amendments.

The letter, I can tell you, will be going out probably within an hour, so I presume that if you have amendments you will deliver them to the clerk.

Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chairperson, if I wanted to move a motion that before the government decides to increase the processing fees for citizenship, they would be required to have a debate inside the immigration committee, can I do that at this time as opposed to having to wait to submit something to you?

I do think there would be a great deal of benefit if we had that discussion here. We do not want members of this committee to report back to the government that they want to see citizenship processing fees increased when we know that in fact there is distortion in terms of the actual cost versus the number of people applying for citizenship. I think we need to get a better understanding of that issue.

If it's appropriate, I'd like to move that motion right now, if I could.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The problem is, Mr. Lamoureux, we agreed—you were one of the people who agreed, and it was unanimous—that we would not debate amendments to these clauses, that those amendments could be made, that they would be delivered to the clerk, and I—